Abstract Summary
Over the last four decades the biota of the Florida Reef Tract has suffered from a number of disturbances and stresses, including disease outbreaks, warm-water bleaching events, storms and hurricanes, outbreaks of coral predators, winter cold spells, and a host of direct and indirect anthropogenic impacts. Of these perturbations, disease outbreaks have had the greatest impact in reducing coral cover. Disease outbreaks continue to present a significant threat to coral populations in the western Atlantic region. Recent studies have forged a clear link between rising ocean temperatures and the increased incidence and virulence of these diseases, suggesting that the impact of coral diseases will increase with continued global warming. Controlling disease outbreaks will, therefore, be critical to conserving coral reefs. Under scenarios of increasing frequency and duration of coral-disease outbreaks, coral genotypes with high disease resistance and resilience should have an ecological and evolutionary advantage over low-resistance genotypes, provided their ability to cope with disease does not incur unworkable tradeoffs in fitness. Understanding the coral immune system, and in particular its heritable components, as well as the links between host genetics and beneficial microbes, will be crucial to the search for the host and symbiont genotypes best suited to large-scale restoration efforts. Thus, the increasing prevalence and incidence of marine diseases and their link to climate change, make genetically-based applied research imperative to fostering the recovery of reef ecosystems.
